This invention relates generally to bottle closures and more particularly to bottle caps which provide a visible display upon having been tampered with after bottle filling and before reaching the ultimate consumer.
One common style of prior art bottle cap of the tamperproof type is fabricated with an internal thread for reversably engaging the externally threaded neck finish of a bottle and with an internally ratcheted, tamper-indicating ring that is breakably connected to the cap proper. This style of tamperproof cap affords ease of reclosure by means of the cooperating threaded structures after the tamperproof ring has been removed.
Another style of prior art tamperproof cap has no threads but rather snaps over a shoulder on the bottle neck finish. This second style of cap is simple to affix during the bottle-filling operation but does not provide a dependable seal because of dimensional variations in the shoulder on the bottle neck. In addition, this second style of tamperproof cap is not particularly convenient to use by the consumer in the resealing mode.
Therefore, an important object of the present invention is to provide a tamperproof cap which is easy to affix to a bottle and which, at the same time, achieves both a highly efficient seal and facility in reclosure.
A more general object of the present invention is to provide a new and improved bottle cap of the tamperproof type.
Another general object of the invention is to provide a closure which may be affixed to a bottle in either the mode of a threaded cap or that of a snap-on cap.
These and other objects and features of the invention will become more apparent from a consideration of the following descriptions.